Saudi arabia's politicals prisoners

7/30/2019 Saudi arabia's politicals prisoners

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SAUDIARABIAS

POLITICALPRISONERS:

19902000

2010

Towards a

Third Decade

of Silence

2011

Publishedby

Islamic HumanRightsCommission

www.ihrc.org.uk


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First published in Great Britain in 2011 (September 30)

by Islamic Human Rights Commission

PO Box 598, Wembley, HA9 7XH

2011 Islamic Human Rights Commission

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised

in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known

or hereinafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information

storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

ISBN 978-1-903718-82-7


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SAUDI ARABIAS POLITICAL PRISONERS: TOWARDS A THIRD DECADE OF SILENCE

Saudi Arabia is a country in which the al-Saud family represents the absolute political, cultural and

religious authority. This absolutist nature of the Saudi state ensures that free speech is stifled and that all

forms of political opposition and dissent are harshly suppressed and silenced. Among the primary tools

of this suppression, the government employs the tactic of arbitrary detention without charge or trial, in

addition to staging sham trials lacking any semblance of due process, both of which have become

hallmarks of Saudi justice.

Political imprisonment in Saudi Arabia is an epidemic has not spared any sector of Saudi society,

including reformists, human rights activists, lawyers, political parties, religious scholars, bloggers,individual protestors, as well as long-standing government supporters who merely voiced mild and partial

criticism of government policy. The known political prisons in Saudi Arabia have a capacity to hold

10,000, yet insider reports confirm these prisons to be oversubscribed three times over, with some

prisoners even known to be held at irregular detention facilities, putting the actual number of political

prisoners at over 30,000. This is exceptionally high considering the countrys total population stands at

around 27 million, of whom only around 18 million are Saudi nationals.

The purpose of this briefing is to draw attention to some key case studies of political imprisonment in

Saudi Arabia, highlighting the diverse nature of the victims of imprisonment, with a focus on ongoing

cases of suppression.


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SAUDI ARABIAS POLITICAL PRISONERS:TOWARDS A THIRD DECADE OF SILENCE

The 1990s

Following the first Gulf War (19901991) and the Saudi governments handling of the conflict, broad

sections of Saudi society came together to call upon the government for serious political and social

reforms, particularly in the area of human rights, the justice system and political participation and

representation. University academics, lawyers, businessmen and religious scholars signed their names

to an open letter directed to the government, which became known as the Letter of Demands. The letter

was also endorsed by some prominent names among the official governmental religious establishment,

the Council of Senior Scholars, including the establishments two highest ranking scholars, Shaykh

Abdul Aziz ibn Baz and Shaykh Muhammad ibn Uthaymeen. Soon after that, an expanded and

detailed version of the letter was written, signed to and circulated under the name of the Memorandum

of Advice and the countrys first human rights organisation, the Committee for the Defence ofLegitimate Rights (CDLR), was set up in 1993. The CDLRs official spokesperson was Prof

Muhammad al-Massari, an academic who would later relocate the Committees main office to London,

and its founding members included his fatherShaykh Abdullah Suleiman al-Massari, the head of the

government ombudsman office during the reign of kings Saud, Faisal and Khaled; Shaykh Abdullah ibn

Jibreen, another member of the governments Council of Senior Scholars; Dr Suleiman al-Rushoodi,

a prominent lawyer who would later become a permanent fixture on the reform circuit; and Dr Abdullah

al-Hamed, an academic who would also continue to champion reform for the coming two decades.

It was at this stage that the government sought to drive a wedge between the reformists and the support

they found among some scholars in the official religious establishment. The government conducted a

comprehensive campaign of mass arrests against the reformists, detaining, among others, the CDLRsspokesperson Prof Muhammad al-Massari; Dr Saad al-Faqih, a surgeon and member of the CDLR

who would later help Prof al-Massari relocate its office to London; and Dr Ahmed al-Tuwaijry, the

Dean of the Education Faculty at King Saud University. More arrests soon followed, with the detention

of three names that would continue to haunt the Saudi government, Dr Abdullah al-Hamed, Shaykh

Abdul Aziz Muhammad al-Wuhaybi and Dr Suleiman al-Rushoodi.

The governments measures achieved relative success, with the effective castigation ofShaykh Abdullah

ibn Jibreen and the commissioning of a Fatwa from the governments Council of Senior Scholars

condemning the CDLR and rejecting the project that the Councils most senior members had previously

endorsed in the form of the Letter of Demands. The governments oppressive crackdown against

reform, as well as its endemic corruption and its serial political indiscretions, pushed a new generationof religious scholars from outside the official establishment to call for mass demonstrations; an

unprecedented event in the country. The symbolic figureheads of this movement were Shaykh Salman

al-Odah and Shaykh Safar al-Hawali and included others such as Shaykh Naser al-Omar, who would

later reconcile most of his differences with the government, and Dr Saeed Aal-Zuair, a religious

scholar and professor of media studies who was imprisoned upon attempting to dissuade the religious

establishments top scholar, Shaykh Abdul Aziz ibn Baz, from issuing an edict that would have paved

the way for recognising and normalising relations with the state of Israel.

Most of the reformist activists and academicians were eventually released from prison in the 1990s, with

varying degrees of travel and employment restrictions applied to them upon release. The CDLRdecided

to establish an office in London to oppose the government from abroad, under the supervision ofProfMuhammad al-Massari and Dr Saad al-Faqih. However, the religious scholars who were imprisoned

for challenging the government and its policies remained imprisoned until 1999 and remained under

house arrest for another few years after being released.


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The 2000sThe first decade of the new century posed many challenges to the Saudi regime. The US-led invasionsof Afghanistan and Iraq, beginning in 2001 and 2003 respectively, were widely perceived by Saudi

society to have taken place with the acquiescence of the Saudi government. This renewed popular

grievances that arose from the Saudi governments assistance to the US during the Gulf War a decade

earlier. Whereas some among the previous generation of the regimes critics, such as Shaykh Salman

al-Odah and Shaykh Safar al-Hawali, spoke critically against the concept of US-led wars against the

two countries, they avoided confrontation with the Saudi government by remaining largely silent on the

issue of Saudi government involvement and approval of the two wars. On the other hand, a new

generation of critics arose as a result of the tense political climate.

Beginning shortly after the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the period 20032006 saw a spate of attacks in

Saudi Arabia attributed to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), apparently targeting both theWestern presence in the country as well as the Saudi government itself. These attacks were exploited by

the Saudi regime to enact a repressive counter-terrorism policy, which would effectively silence any

criticism of the government. Dr Saeed Aal-Zuair, first imprisoned in 1995, was released from prison

in 2003. He was re-imprisoned a few months later in 2004 after participating in a brief telephone

interview with Al Jazeera news channel, in which he criticised the governments handling of the attacks.

Around the same time, another popular religious scholar, Shaykh Suleiman Nasser al-Alwan, who had

been banned from teaching for a number of years but was permitted to teach once again in May 2003,

was arrested by the Saudi security services on 28 April 2004 and was taken to Al-Hayer prison in Riyadh,

where he still remains. Shaykh al-Alwan was not presented with an arrest warrant, however it is

understood that he was imprisoned on the basis of public comments he made that were highly critical of

US policy in the Arab world, and in particular for his denunciation of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Shaykhal-Alwan continues to suffer from ill treatment, including being held in complete isolation, enduring

torture and being denied due process. Additionally, in 2007 he was pressed by the government to appear

on national television in a public recorded statement to repudiate his previous positions. His refusal to

do so has led to a renewed campaign of cruelty against him on the part of the Saudi authorities. [ 1]

As the Saudi government could not tolerate relatively mild critics, such as Dr Saeed Aal-Zuair and

Shaykh Suleiman al-Alwan, it certainly did not tolerate critics who were more vocal in their

condemnation of the Saudi government, particularly in its negative involvement in the Iraq war. Two

alleged AQAP theorists, known for their lengthy treatises critical of US and Saudi policy in the region

and for challenging the government religious establishment to debate with them, Shaykh Faris Aal-

Shuwayl al-Zahrani and Shaykh Abdul Aziz al-Anzi, were captured by Saudi security forces in August2004 and May 2005 respectively after months in hiding. Neither individual has been charged with a

crime, nor put on trial since their capture. They remain in Saudi custody today, but their exact

whereabouts and the conditions of their imprisonment remain unknown. [2, 3] Additionally, three radical

religious scholars of significant prominence, Shaykh Ali al-Khudhair, Shaykh Ahmed al-Khalidi and

Shaykh Nasser al-Fahad, were imprisoned in May 2003 after issuing a joint statement rejecting the

premise of a most wanted list of 19 names that had recently been released by the Saudi government.

The statement had included a Fatwa prohibiting anyone from assisting the Saudi government in their

search for the 19 listed individuals, whether by republishing the wanted posters, reporting the

whereabouts of the individuals, or attempting to search for them. The scholars identified the reasoning

behind this ruling as the fact that the list had been released under the aegis of the American war on

terror and thus, assisting the Saudi government in its pursuit of the individuals was in effect providingsuch assistance to the United States. [4] Six months into their imprisonment, in November 2003, Shaykhs

al-Khudhair, al-Khalidi and al-Fahad were forced to appear on national television and made to publicly

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renounce their previous views. Despite this apparent renunciation, the scholars were returned to prison,

where they still remain today. [5] To this date, numerous letters written by al-Khalidi and al-Fahad have

been smuggled out of prison, in which they retracted their televised pronouncements and expressed that

they had been made under duress.

It was during this period of social upheaval that three reformists: the poet Mr Ali al-Demaini; university

professor and human rights activist Dr Matrouk al-Faleh and veteran reformist and co-founder of the

CDLRDr Abdullah al-Hamed,began campaigning more openly for government reform, calling for the

establishment of a constitutional monarchy as a first step towards solving the countrys problems. The

three activists were imprisoned in March 2004 after signing a petition demanding constitutional reform.

It was not until 2005, when the Saudi throne passed from the late Fahad ibn Abdul Aziz to his half-

brotherAbdullah, that the three academics, as well as Dr Saeed Aal-Zuair were released from prison

thanks to a royal pardon issued by the new king on their behalf.

The last few years of the decade saw the arbitrary detention of a number of other well-known reformists,

religious scholars and other activists, including the serial re-imprisonment of the most prominent among

them. Shaykh Khalid al-Rashed, a highly popular religious scholar and speaker, was arrested on 19

March 2006 in Mecca, where he was completing the Umrah pilgrimage with his wife. This took place

after he recorded an emotional, widely-distributed lecture [6] in which he condemned the Danish cartoons

and called for the Prophets honour to be defended, placing the incident in a wider context of humiliation,

including the occupation of Palestine. Dr Bisher Fahad al-Bisher, a Riyadh-based university professor

of Islamic law who was imprisoned in the 1990s without charge, was re-arrested on 15 March 2007. He

remains in prison today, where he has been subjected to prolonged spells in solitary confinement and

other forms of ill treatment. His family was only allowed to visit him for the first time 9 months after he

was imprisoned and he has been held in a refrigerated underground cell and denied medical treatment,

which has caused his health to deteriorate significantly. [7]

On Friday 2 February 2007, the Saudi government carried out mass arrests, which were touted in the

media as part of a successful counter-terrorism operation. The victims of these raids were in fact

influential academics, rights activists and reformists, the most prominent of whom were Dr Saud

Mukhtar al-Hashimi, Dr Musa al-Qarni and Dr Suleiman al-Rushoodi. Dr Saud al-Hashimi is a

Jeddah-based medical doctor and a faculty member at King Abdulaziz University. He comes from a

prominent family in the Hejaz and is a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad via the lineage of Imam

Musa al-Kazim. He is a long standing human rights defender who has worked to protect civil and political

rights in Saudi Arabia and has called for constitutional reform and democratic rights. One of his

recordings [8] particularly attracted the ire of the ruling establishment, in which he called for academics

and religious scholars to establish independent and transparent offices and research centres, which would

in turn form councils that would aid the development of thought and cooperate in mobilising publicaction, contributing to a more open, accountable and socially responsible societal landscape. The Saudi

Ministry of Interior has used this recording as evidence to accuse Dr al-Hashimi of sedition and for

calling for the overthrow of the established system of governance. Dr Musa al-Qarni is a university

professor of Islamic law and a historian of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He had appeared in a television

interview in 2006 highlighting the contradiction in the Saudi governments support for Osama bin Laden

and the Jihadi movement in the 1980s and its opposition to the same movement today. Both Dr al-

Hashimi and Dr al-Qarni remain in prison to this date. Dr Suleiman al-Rushoodi had been a

co-signatory to the establishment of the CDLR, as well as being the human rights lawyer who defended

the cases of the three reformists, Dr Abdullah al-Hamed, Ali al-Demaini and Dr Matrouk al-Faleh

in 2005. Dr al-Rushoodi was only released from prison on Thursday 23 June 2011 due to the worsening

condition of his health. All those arrested in February 2007, including Dr al-Qarni, Dr al-Hashimi andDr al-Rushoodi, continue to remain on trial for blanket charges of supporting and financing terrorism,

illegally collecting funds to support suspicious groups and engaging in embezzlement. [9]

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One of the most tragic stories of the Saudi political prisoners is that of the professor of media studies Dr

Saeed Aal-Zuair and his family. Having been imprisoned twice before, from 1995 to 2003 and again

from 2004 to 2005, Dr Saeed Aal-Zuair was arrested again on Wednesday 6 June 2007. This time

around, he was arrested along with one of his younger sons, Mr Saad Aal-Zuair, a reformist lawyer

who had also spent time in prison in the past thanks to his activism. Both father and son remainimprisoned to this date. [10]

The 2010sAfter twenty years of government repression and the routine imprisonment and harassment of reformers

and activists, the Saudi government has done very little to address the legitimate aspirations of its people,

and even less to address the effectiveness of its policy in dealing with political opposition by refusing to

revise it to a strategy based on principles of justice and equality. On the other hand, however, the Saudipeople have become more politically aware and are now bolder in asserting their political identity and

in standing up for their rights. Whereas in 1993, there mere establishment of a civil rights organisation,

the CDLR, was deemed enough for the government to wage a wide-scaled campaign of arrests and

harassment, by 2010, many independent political, activist and advocacy groups had been established,

even if not acknowledged by the government. Examples of these groupings include progressive online

magazines, such as Royaah Magazine [http://www.royaah.net/] and the Omma Conference Magazine

[http://www.ommahconf.com/], supervised by Dr Abdul Aziz Muhammad al-Wuhaybi and associated

with the Omma Conference, a collective of regional branches of the Omma Party, first established in 2005

in Kuwait by Dr Hakem al-Mutairi. Other significant groups established in recent times have included

rights organisations, such as the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA)

[http://www.acpra.net/], which operates in both Arabic and English and has been pivotal in bringing to lightthe cases of Saudi Arabias political prisoners and highlighting the need for political reform. The

Association was co-founded in October 2009 by a number of prominent activists, including, but not

limited to, Mr Sa'ud Ahmed al-Dughaithir, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights; Dr Abdul

Kareem Yusuf al-Khidhr, professor of comparative law; Dr Abdullah al-Hamed, one time co-founder

of the CDLR; Dr Mohammed Fahad al-Qahtani, professor of political economics and current president

of ACPRA; and Mr Mohammed Salih al-Bejadi, who would soon become a symbol for the rights

movement. Additionally, veteran activists Dr Musa al-Qarni and Dr Suleiman al-Rushoodi, both

imprisoned since February 2007 at the time of ACPRAs founding, announced their support for the

project. [11] It was this increasingly organised collective of groups and activists that would spearhead the

push for radical change in the country once the Arab Spring would take hold in early 2011.

Among the most prominent names to be imprisoned in 2010 were Mukhlif al-Shammari, Dr

Muhammad al-Abdul Karim and Thamir Abdul Karim al-Khidhr. Mukhlif al-Shammari, a

respected tribal leader and pro-reform writer, popular for his opinion pieces in his local Hail newspaper

[12] and other various online magazines, was briefly arrested on 15 May 2010 and then imprisoned again

the following month on 15 June 2010 while attending a dinner with friends. On 20 June 2010 he was

charged with the offence of annoying others with his writings and was subsequently interrogated in

relation to six of his published articles. He remains in prison to this date. [13, 14] Dr Muhammad al-

Abdul Karim is an assistant professor of jurisprudence and Islamic legal theory. [15] It was his article

entitled The crisis of conflict amongst the governing wings in Saudi Arabia, published on the Omma

Conference website on 22 November 2010 [16], which led to his arrest and imprisonment on Sunday 6

December 2010. [17] Following a highly publicised and sustained campaign, Dr al-Abdul Karim was

released from prison on Tuesday 15 February 2011. Thamir Abdul Karim al-Khidhr, a university

student who was 18 years old at the time of his imprisonment on 3 March 2010, was arrested partly

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thanks to his own involvement with a student human rights group, but primarily as a means to put

pressure on his father, Dr Abdul Kareem Yusuf al-Khidhr. As is the case of many other activists,

Thamir al-Khidhr remains imprisoned to this date. [18]

After the Tunisian protest movement had succeeded in toppling Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and a daybefore Hosni Mubarakwas forced to resign from his office in Egypt, a group of activists capitalised on

the opportunity to announce the establishment of Saudi Arabias first political party, the Islamic Omma

Party, on 10 February 2011. The partys co-founders included Dr Abdul Aziz Muhammad al-Wuhaybi,

a prominent lawyer and supervisor of the Omma Conference Magazine; Dr Abdul Kareem Yusuf al-

Khidhr and Mr Sa'ud bin Ahmed al-Dughaithir, co-founders of ACPRA; Dr Ahmed Sa'ad Gharm

Aal-Ghamidi, professor at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca; Shaykh Muhammad Hussein al-

Ghaanim al-Qahtani, a respected businessman; Mr Muhammad Naser al-Ghamidi, a political

activist; and Dr Waleed Muhammad Abdullah al-Majid, a lawyer and doctor of law. [19] The partys

inaugural statement included a list of 188 prominent political prisoners and called for their immediate

release as a first step towards meaningful reform in the country. [20] The partys co-founders were arrested

and detained without charge on Thursday 16 February 2011, as was highlighted by IHRC at the time. [21

]All the partys co-founders were eventually released, after being pressured to sign assurances that they

would refrain from anti-government activity, with the exception ofDr Abdul Aziz Muhammad al-

Wuhaybi who remains imprisoned to this date. The remaining co-founders who have been released are

forced to put up with severe travel restrictions and bans on the permission to teach. Dr Abdul Kareem

Yusuf al-Khidhr, a party co-founder who has been one of the most active in writing and campaigning

since being released, continues to suffer the additional pressure of having two of his sons held in prison

as a form of political blackmail: His older son, Thamir Abdul Karim al-Khidhr, 20 years old, was

imprisoned on 3 March 2010, a few months after his father had helped set up ACPRA, and his younger

son Jihad Abdul Karim al-Khidhr, 17 years old, a secondary school student, was imprisoned on Sunday

20 March 2011, while demonstrating in front of the Interior Ministry building for the release of political

prisoners, including his father at the time. Both Thamir and Jihad al-Khidhr remain in prison to thisdate. [22]

The period leading up to and including March 2011 proved to be particularly ripe with arrests all across

the country, in part due to the call for mass protests in the style of those taking place in other Arab

countries at the time, especially the protest called for on Friday 11 March 2011. These arrests targeted

both known activists, such as Shaykh Tawfiq al-Amir, Dr Mubarak Aal-Zuair and Muhammad al-

Bejadi, as well as previously unknown individuals who have become overnight icons of the protest

movement in Saudi Arabia. Shaykh Tawfiq al-Amir, a Shia scholar based in Saudi Arabias Eastern

Province who had previously been arrested in April 2005 and September 2008 under direct orders from

the Interior Minister, was imprisoned again on Sunday 27 February 2011 after delivering a sermon the

previous Friday 25 February 2011, [23] in which he called for radical reform in the country and theestablishment of a constitutional monarchy. He expressed the need to guarantee a separation of political

powers and the establishment of a fully elected parliamentary consultative council and he condemned

Saudi and Western interference in Bahrain. [24] He was released a week later on Sunday 6 March 2011

without having been charged with a crime. [25] Shaykh al-Amir was rearrested on Wednesday 3 August

2011 as he returned home from performing evening prayers and detained without charge. He remains

imprisoned to this date. [26] Dr Mubarak Aal-Zuair is a professor of media studies, having followed

in the professional footsteps of his fatherDr Saeed Aal-Zuair. He was campaigning for the release of

political prisoners, including his father, Dr Saeed Aal-Zuair, and brother, Mr Saad Aal-Zuair, and

was invited to a meeting at the Interior Ministry by means of a personal phone call from the Deputy

Minister of Interior, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef. Despite this phone call and the assurances made

by the prince that the situation of the prisoners would be resolved, Dr Mubarak Aal-Zuair was arrestedon the morning of Sunday 20 March 2011, as he was on his way to the Interior Ministry for a scheduled

meeting with the prince. Since being imprisoned, he has managed to smuggle a letter out of his jail cell,

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which has pointed to utterly contemptible prison conditions, including being forced to sleep inside a

lavatory. IHRC has campaigned for the release ofDr Mubarak Aal-Zuair and continue to call on the

Saudi government to release him and the other members of his family unjustly imprisoned to this date.

[27, 28, 29] Muhammad Salih al-Bejadi, a co-founder and core member of ACPRA, was also imprisoned

the following day on Monday 21 March 2011 for his involvement in actively campaigning for the releaseof political prisoners. ACPRA has campaigned tirelessly on behalf of Mr al-Bejadi, yet he still remains

imprisoned thanks to his work.

Amongst the prisoners arrested during this period who had had no known history of political activism,

yet who have become prominent in the Saudi protest movement through their inspiring bravery and

dedication, are Muhammad al-Wadani and Khaled al-Juhani. All that is known about Muhammad

al-Wadani is that, as implied by his family name, he comes from a branch of the large and influential

Dosary clan of central Arabia and that he is a school teacher by profession. Al-Wadaniperformed an

unprecedented act in Saudi Arabia by appearing in a five-minute recorded video message of an explicitly

political and categorically anti-establishment nature, which he had posted on YouTube in late February

2011. [30

] The act had been unprecedented both for the fact that he appeared in the video not making anyattempt to hide his identity, on the contrary, making a point to publish the video under his full, real name,

and for the videos open rejection of royalty, as can be read from the videos title: Now is the time to

bring down the monarchy. Al-Wadani followed this video up with another scarcely over two minutes

long, in which he confirmed the date and the meeting point for a demonstration he had called for in his

first video as Friday 4 March 2011, and he acknowledged his expectation to stand alone on the day and

be arrested for it. [31] He pointed out that the lesson that should be learned, were this to happen, is that

so weak is the Saudi government that it finds it necessary to send out its forces to arrest a one-man

demonstration on the basis of an internet video in which he practically surrenders himself. As he had

predicted, Muhammad al-Wadani was arrested after Friday prayers on 4 March 2011 as he stood to

lead the demonstration in the presence of a number of supporters. The moment of the arrest was recorded

and uploaded to YouTube, [32] in which al-Wadani is being led away by plain clothes officers and theviciously sectarian nature of the regime and its supporters is demonstrated by someone being heard

shouting grab the Rafidhi (a derogatory term used against Shia), dont let him get away!, despite al-

Wadanibeing from one of Arabias largest Sunni clans. After his disappearance in early March, no one

has heard from al-Wadani, yet some reports have pointed to him having to be hospitalised after a

particularly brutal torture session.

Khaled al-Juhani is another school teacher and a father of four children, one of whom is autistic. Al-

Juhani rose overnight from obscurity to being an icon of the Saudi protest movement, symbolising the

plight of the average citizen, when he responded to the nationwide call for demonstrations on 11 March

2011. He resolved to make his voice heard by speaking openly about the need for radical reform in the

country to Western journalists who had come to cover the protests. The BBC Arabic [33] and English [34]services conducted impromptu interviews with him, in which he called for freedom of expression and

the press, demanded basic civil rights, condemned the overwhelming police presence and expressed his

full knowledge that he would be arrested and imprisoned immediately after the interview was over,

which is precisely what took place. Since his disappearance, Khaled al-Juhani has become the subject

of an online campaign on both Facebook [35] and Twitter [36] under the title Where is Khaled?

Whilst the governments move to suppress individual demonstrators such as al-Wadani and al-Juhani

may point to an unprecedented level of desperation, the Saudi government has recently gone a step

further and has imprisoned some figures closely associated with government institutions, some of whom

have been vocal government supporters who have defended the government against opponents in the past.

The first of these examples is the controversial preacher, Shaykh Suleiman al-Duwaish, who hasappeared numerous times on satellite television channels, such as al-Alam, towing the government line

and standing up for its institutions in debates with dissidents such as Prof Muhammad al-Massari, [37]

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and defending the governments decision to sack a prominent scholar, Shaykh Saad al-Shithry, from

the official religious establishment on the background of criticism he had levelled at the government. [38]

Shaykh al-Duwaish had overstepped a red line when, in his campaign against hardcore secularists and

liberals, he posted a video on YouTube in March 2011 and then followed it up on 15 May 2011 with an

article, both of which levelled criticism directly against Khaled al-Tuwaijry, Chief of the Royal Courtand the highest ranking government minister outside the Royal Family. Shaykh al-Duwaish attempted

to pin all un-Islamic government and media practices and institutionalised corruption in the country,

which he identified as the driving forces behind the increased sense of unrest and civil strife in wider

Saudi society, on al-Tuwaijry and others, while exonerating the Royal Family from any blame. Shaykh

al-Duwaish was arrested in June 2011 without charge or trial and continues to remain in prison today.

Another example is Dr Yusuf al-Ahmed, no stranger to controversy, as exemplified by his Fatwa calling

for the prohibition of women to work as airline pilots and his invitation to demolish the Grand Mosque

in Mecca so that it may be rebuilt in a way that would prevent all mixing of sexes. Dr al-Ahmed is an

academic specialised in Islamic law who holds the position of President of the Islamic Law Editing Team

for the Ministry of Education, having participated in the preparation of 28 publications, and a legalprofessional who has acted on behalf of people arbitrarily detained by the authorities. Dr al-Ahmed has

not shied in the past from directing criticism towards the government, as in his open letters regarding the

Ministry of Culture and Information, the Ministry of Health and the Justice Minister [ 39,40,41]; his criticism

of the conduct of members of the Royal Family and other government officials [42,43,44]; and his criticism

of government projects and policies, [45,46] including his call on the government to expel deposed Tunisian

dictatorZine El Abidine Ben Ali from Saudi Arabia. [47] However, the reason behind his arrest on 8 July

2011 was a series of three video messages he had posted on YouTube addressed directly to King

Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz and the Interior MinisterPrince Nayef ibn Abdul Aziz regarding the issue

of political prisoners in Saudi jails, calling for the need for those arbitrarily detained to receive a fair and

just trial. The first video message, posted in March 2011, was over 17 minutes in duration [48]; the second,

posted in May 2011, went into more detail and was over half an hour long. [49] The third message, [50]posted on 7 July 2011, just a day before Dr al-Ahmeds arrest, represented the final straw, as he used

stern language to unequivocally condemn the governments recent mass arrest of female protestors who

had been demonstrating to demand the release of their arbitrarily detained sons, brothers, husbands and

other family members. Dr al-Ahmeds close association with governmental academic bodies and the

Ministry of Education did not vouch for him and he remains imprisoned to this day.

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Conclusion:

The crisis of political imprisonment in Saudi Arabia is more serious today than it has ever been before.

The plight of political prisoners, whether being made to endure arbitrary detention or to suffer in the

complete absence of due process, continues into its third decade unimpeded. The Saudi government hasdone little, if anything at all, to attempt to change its tactics in dealing with political opponents, the

default reaction being to lock them up and, if they are ever released, to continue applying pressures to

them in the form of travel bans, employment bans, teaching bans, and by means of imprisoning direct

family members and other relatives. Criticism of the Monarchy and its institutions, whether in the form

of the Royal Court or the Royal Family itself, remains a red line that no one may dare cross without

expecting the inevitable imprisonment and, if they are fortunate enough, a show of a trial that may attempt

to show a form of process. Individual citizens are just as likely to be victims of this mockery of justice

as prominent intellectuals and academics, and even staunch government supporters who inadvertently

overstep the ever-changing invisible red lines may fall victim to this ruthless policy. The deafening

silence that has taken hold with regard to this problem has resulted in a Saudi prison system whose

population of political prisoners in 2011 has been estimated at 30,000, three times the official potential

capacity of 10,000. Of these, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry Major General Mansour al-Turki

admitted to holding 5,000 political prisoners in prisons across the country. Lawyers and human rights

activists in Saudi Arabia have compiled lists of names that can account for around 7,000 political

prisoners. The silence that has allowed for this appalling crime to take place unhindered must be broken.

The Saudi government must come to realise that in a world where tyrants are being toppled, one after

the other, suppressive policies such as these will only work against it. The Saudi government must release

all political prisoners held in its jails across the country without delay, or it must conduct fair and open

trials in which the accused may defend themselves.

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Endnotes:

1 http://en.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=192:saudi-arabia-mr-suleyman-al-

alouane-arbitrarily-detained-for-over-five-years&catid=33:communiqu&Itemid=1802 http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=1&article=248824&issueno=93833 http://www.alriyadh.com/2005/06/02/article69317.html4 http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&article=173560&issueno=89485 http://aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&issueno=9121&article=203677&feature=6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1E16E31moo7 http://ar.alkarama.org/index.php?Itemid=50&catid=146:-&id=3545:2009-04-17-07-46-

26&option=com_content&view=article8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmoiubYklBQ9 http://ar.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4189:2011-06-27-08-25-

04&catid=146:-&Itemid=5010 http://ar.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4152:-4-&catid=146:-&Itemid=5011 http://www.acpra.net/news.php?action=view&id=112 http://www.hailnews.net/hail/articles.php?action=listarticles&id=2613 http://ar.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3926:-q-q&catid=146:-&Itemid=5014 http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/1530915 http://ar.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4058:2011-02-17-16-59-

10&catid=146:-&Itemid=5016 http://www.ommahconf.com/Portals/Content/?info=YVdROU5UWTRKbk52ZFhKalpUMVRkV0p3W

VdkbEpuUjVjR1U5TVNZPSt1.plx17 http://www.ommahconf.com/Portals/Content/?info=YVdROU5UYzRKbk52ZFhKalpUMVRkV0p3W

VdkbEpuUjVjR1U5TVNZPSt1.plx18 http://www.acpra.net/news.php?action=view&id=3819 http://www.islamicommaparty.com/Portals/Content/?info=TkRnNEpsTjFZbEJoWjJVbU1T

WmhjbUk9K3U=.jsp

20 http://www.islamicommaparty.com/Portals/Content/?info=TkRreUpsTjFZbEJoWjJVbU1TWmhjbUk9K3U=.jsp

21 http://ihrc.org.uk/activities/alerts/9590-alert-saudi-government-crackdown-islamic-omma-party22 http://ar.alkarama.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4127:2011-04-18-10-45-

24&catid=146:-&Itemid=5023 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqslMRtM2oA24 http://www.shamarpress.com/news.php?action=view&id=493325 http://islamtoday.net/albasheer/artshow-12-147141.htm26 http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&Id=25785327 http://ihrc.org.uk/activities/alerts/9643-action-alert-saudi-arabia-human-rights-activist-jailed-for-speaking-out-

against-injustice28 http://ihrc.org.uk/news/articles/9641-activists-letter-smuggled-out-of-saudi-jail-unveils-gross-human-rights29

http://ihrc.org.uk/activities/press-releases/9642-press-release-saudi-arabia--human-rights-situation-sinks-to-new-depths30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SscXBymK6cA31 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9HmwwJrdAU32 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEBNRiHe-0Y33 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxinAxWxXo834 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9phWXWprjrY35 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Where-is-Khaled-%D8%A3%D9%8A%D9%86-

%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF/17186860286306236 https://twitter.com/whereiskhaled37 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAzX6D3GKmY38 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gY-WIrs0YM39 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=8097&Itemid=540 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=21320&Itemid=541 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=19651&Itemid=542 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=com_ftawa&task=view&id=3062643 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=com_ftawa&task=view&id=37513

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44 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=com_ftawa&task=view&id=3217245 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=com_ftawa&task=view&id=3483546 http://www.dr-alahmad.com/index.php?option=com_ftawa&task=view&id=3085247 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdTRR-BtPVk&NR48 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBVITp2duYQ49 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHL_QOabLKI50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqmpInlVsy0

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Documents

Saudi arabia's politicals prisoners